A Mere Eight Decades

Between them, they have worked for Dartmouth for almost 86 years, each in a capacity that has, directly or indirectly, made a lot of alumni "homecomings" a lot more special.

Florence Carey, the comparative new- comer, signed on as secretary to Hanover Inn manager Peggy Sayre in November 1942; Harry Sanborn went to work at the golf course the last day of May in 1935. They both retire officially this month.

As superintendent at the Hanover Country Club, Sanborn oversees the work of a crew numbering up to a dozen that is responsible for keeping the golf course in verdant shape in the summer and maintaining skating areas on Occom Pond and Davis and Thompson Arena rinks during the cold months. It's a family trade with the Sanborns, who moved to the Upper Valley from Berlin, New Hampshire, when Harry was a boy: his brother Cliff worked for him as a mechanic for 39 years, and his son Bob has been a member of the crew for over 20.

Both Sanborn and Carey have seen the famous and the occasional infamous come and go. With the innate discretion of the perfect hostelry hostess, Carey refuses to countenance any question as to who, over the years, has been the most important person to stay at the Inn. "Every guest who comes to the Hanover Inn is just as important as the next one," she insists. Some, she concedes, have been more interesting or more troublesome like the woman with the phony title who swept in with mountains of baggage some years back, to be lionized briefly by the local gentry before the police closed in.

Dartmouth trustees have always been Florence Carey's special favorites. "They're all busy, prominent people, but it seems that the more important people are, the nicer they are," she says. "The trustees always know the waitresses by name, and they never fail to come in and say 'hello.'

Although she still retains the official title of secretary to the manager, Carey has been in charge of reservations under five Inn directors. All reservations for the following six months are meticulously recorded on large rainbow-stickered charts on her of flee wall. Her files hold requests for rooms as far in advance as commencement 1990, which are acknowledged but never confirmed until six months ahead. "The College always has priority, and we wait to see whether rooms will be needed for some official function." Her most complex project, she recalls, was when President Eisenhower was coming to receive an honorary degree. Although the President stayed with the John Sloan Dickeys, there was a large entourage to be accommodated. "We spent a full year working with the people in Washington. Once we had the list of names and had all the special telephones installed, there could be no changes in room assignments."

Although the new Inn is much plusher, Carey misses some of the charm of the old the coffee shop with the big window to Main Street, the high ceilings, the creaky old wide staircase. In those days, many regular guests came for the entire summer. "They enjoyed the long stay in a quiet community," she said, "but, of course, our rooms were $10 a night then, where they are $75 to $85 now."

Harry Sanborn misses some things about the old days, too, when the rope tow was functioning on the golf course and students skied on Oak Hill, when outdoor evening on the golf course was a highlight of Winter Carnival and four separate areas on Occom Pond were maintained for hockey Hanover High School games, intrarpurals, practices, and pick-up skating. But she approves in general of the changes in the town and on the campus. "They've been so gradual," he says, "that if you've been here all along, you'd hardly notice them. Of course, if you wiped out all the new things, you'd never recognize the place." The best thing that's happened to the College, he declares, is having women students. "It was ridiculous, when they're 17 or 18 years old, to say 'Now boys will go to school over here, and girls will go over there.' This way they grow up together naturally just like a family."

Neither Carey nor Sanborn plans to follow the well-beaten retirement path to the Sun Belt. "I've got lots of work to do here," says he, ticking off a long list of avocations, including responsibilities as a Lyme selectman, a fire warden, a forest warden. By the time he gets in a little hunting, a little fishing, and riding around on his snowmobile, he doesn't figure on having much time left over.

"I know so many people in Hanover, I'll be perfectly happy right here," says Carey, a White River Junction native. "I might even find time to go out to a luncheon." After a few weeks trying retirement on for size, she'll go back to the Inn on an abbreviated midweek schedule Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday perhaps, but no more ten-to-eleven hour days.

Florence Carey will still be handling alumni reservations. She'll still call returning guests by name, know who has ailing relatives in the hospital, remember that Dero Saunders '35 likes Room 307, and make sure that people staying alone are assigned rooms looking out over the campus, so they can watch all the things going on.